HOUSES TO LET

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 99, 28 April 1937, Page 13

HOUSES TO LET

ACUTE SHORTAGE

POSITION IN WELLINGTON

Nowhere in New Zealand is the housing shortage more acute than in Wellington city and suburbs, and even with the steps taken by the Government to relieve the position it is unlikely that there will be any great change for the better for some time to come.

The building subsidy granted by the Unemployment Board a year or two ago stimulated building operations considerably, but it did little to relieve the pressure, and only touched the fringe of the trouble, as a great many of the buildings constructed under the subsidy were large city blocks. The housing position was not affected.

Today houses for renting purposes are practically unprocurable. Most of the land agents in-the city are unable to give much encouragement to a homeseeker who requires a house carrying a reasonable rental of, say, 25s or 30s a week. They are sympathetic and add another name to an already long list of waiting tenants. In many cases premiums of £5 or £.10 or two or three months' rent in advance are offered for suitable homes, 'and sometimes this has proved effective. But there are very, few wage-earners able to make such offers.

One or two houses to let are offered daily in "The Post," but if there is anything approaching a reasonable standard it is gone within fifteen minutes of the first edition reaching the streets.

All day long a .constant stream of house-hunters invade the land agencies, and many of them are prepared to pay high rentals for houses in any locality. Suitable flats, furnished or otherwise, also are almost unobtainable, and here again bidding is keen' when anything comes on the market. A land agent in the city said today that it was heart-breaking to turn away day after day people in search of houses and flats.

It is difficult to account for such an acute shortage, but it is probably largely due to an influx of permanent residents to the city and to the greater number of married couples who have tired of "rooming" or "flatting" and desire a home of their own.